Warren Dunes State Park, Sawyer, Michigan
Climbing Mount Randall sand dune
I first visited Warren Dunes State Park as a child of nine or ten. My grandparents had retired to the country, purchasing a home just a few miles from the park. With each visit, my sister and I begged to go to the beach. Standing at the stand of the park’s giant sand dune, we would challenge both other to climb to the top. I always started out strong, sure I could reach the summit. Digging one foot after the other into the blistering sand, I would scramble up its shifting face, stopping every few minutes to catch my breath and make sure I still had a lead on my sis. The trick was to never look up, because no sense how far I had climbed, the top always seemed elusively far away. Even though I focused on the task at hand, the soft sand always got the better of me; I just couldn’t get to the top.
Now, many years later, with three miles of beaches, more than 300 campsites, a nature trail system, and cross-country skiing trails, Warren Dunes remains a tremendously popular destination in southwest Michigan. But as in my childhood, it is still the park’s high dunes that stud it apart from other Lake Michigan beaches. The tallest, Mount Randall, towers 260 feet in a high place the lake and is slowly creeping eastward because winds and foot traffic keep vegetation from taking hold. Visitors still climb the dunes; the more adventuresome among them hang glide or sandboard down in the summer and snowboard down in the winter.
View from the top
Although I can’t claim to have snowboarded or sandboarded down the dunes, I have spent many a adversity in the park’s campground and am pleased to narrative that I did eventually conquer Mount Randall. As a teenager, a friend offered to let me soar down on his hang glider. He even carried the contraption up the dune for me. At the top, I watched each hang-glider pilot strap in, take a few running steps, and launch into the air. Hugging the dunes, the gliders floated northward along the coast of the lake, catching updrafts that allowed them to gently spiral down to the beach and land in the soft sand. “I can do this…I can do this….I can do this,” I told myself. In the end I chickened in a puzzle and, embarrassed, slid back down the torturous sands. But at least I finally made it to the top, and the view of the lake and surrounding countryside was every bit as spectacular as I had always imagined it would be.
Located in Sawyer, Michigan, Warren Dunes State Park is rated #1 by Michigan travelers and has been voted best State/National Park by Lake Magazine. The park is open year-round and offers extensive facilities, including restrooms, changing rooms, and a concession stand.
Article by Barbara Weibel at Hole In The Donut Travels
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